About the Climb

Great White Book ascends a huge left facing corner just above Tenaya Lake. It is the most classic moderate wide climb in Tuolumne, and should be on everyone’s tick list.

Great White Book is a great route that delivers an awesome chimney experience. It demands a variety of climbing techniques, and offers different styles of climbing on impeccable white granite. Because most of the route ascends a wide corner/chimney system, it is hard or impossible to protect in many sections and long runouts are mandatory. However, if you are comfortable at the grade, the laybacking, smearing and butt/shoulder scumming feels very secure and the low angle makes it feel easier.

Even though the route looks very intimidating and steep from below, you will find that once you get up there, the angle is much more manageable. The climbing never gets harder than 5.6, but the run out nature of the climb can make the route seem much harder. On top of that, Stately Pleasure Dome offers an amazing climbing setting with a super short approach, quick and direct descent, and a lake to cool you off after climbing.

This is obviously a great route to put those big cams to use, if you have them. Having a few large cams of 5” to 8” or big bros will help protect the wide sections adequately if you want. Otherwise, a Camalot #4 would fit in some spots, but not everywhere.

Low Resolution GearLoopTopo Preview

Minimum order of 3 GearLoopTopos

The GearLoopTopo

Our GearLoopTopo for Great White Book includes all the information you need to climb the route, with directions starting from the Tuolumne campground.

Possible Combinations

Other high quality routes can also be found on Stately Pleasure Dome and make great combinations if you still have time to spare.
The all-time classic South Crack (5.8R) is a great choice, and can be free of traffic later in the afternoon. Otherwise, combine with West Country (5.7), Hermaphrodite Flake (5.4) or Boltway (5.9).